Whoopi Goldberg

Birth name Caryn Elaine JohnsonNationalityUSABirth 13 november 1955 (63 years) at New York City (USA)Awards Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Caryn Elaine Johnson (born November 13, 1955), better known by her stage name Whoopi Goldberg (/ˈhwʊpi/), is an American actress, comedian, writer, social critic, and television host. She has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards for her work in television, and is one of the few entertainers who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award. She was the second black woman in the history of the Academy Awards to win an acting Oscar. In the 1990s, Goldberg was rumored to be the highest paid actress for her appearances in film.

Her breakthrough role was playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South in the period drama film The Color Purple (1985), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Goldberg played Oda Mae Brown, an eccentric psychic helping a slain man (Patrick Swayze) save his lover (Demi Moore), in the romantic fantasy film Ghost (1990), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was co-producer of the television game show Hollywood Squares from 1998 to 2002. She has been the moderator of the daytime television talk show The View since 2007.

Biography

Goldberg has been married three times—in 1973 to Alvin Martin (divorced in 1979, one daughter), on September 1, 1986 to cinematographer David Claessen (divorced in 1988), and on October 1, 1994 to the union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg (divorced in 1995).

She was romantically linked with actors Frank Langella, Timothy Dalton, and, most famously, Ted Danson, who infamously appeared in blackface during her 1993 Friars Club roast. She has stated that she has no future plans to marry again, commenting "Some people are not meant to be married and I am not meant to. I’m sure it is wonderful for lots of people." In a 2011 interview with Piers Morgan, she explained that she never loved the men she married and commented "You have to really be committed to them. And I'm just—I don't have that commitment. I'm committed to my family." In an October 2013 interview with Howard Stern, Whoopi admitted that she did love one man, not in the show business industry, who died of AIDS after contracting HIV from a blood transfusion.

On May 9, 1974, when Goldberg was 18, she and Alvin Martin had one daughter, Alexandrea Martin, who also became an actress and producer. Goldberg became a grandmother at the age of 34 when her then-sixteen-year-old daughter gave birth to a daughter, Amara Skye, on Goldberg's birthday. Granddaughter Jerzey followed on 7 February 1995 and grandson Mason on 28 September 1998. Goldberg became a great-grandmother on March 15, 2014 when her granddaughter gave birth to a daughter named Charli Rose Burr-Reynaud.

During an episode of The View in April 2010 she defended Jesse James, then-husband of Sandra Bullock, commenting, "It's nobody's fault. Maybe he was looking for something different," adding that she herself had cheated several times.

On August 29, 2010, Goldberg's mother Emma Johnson died after suffering a stroke. She left London at the time, where she had been performing in Sister Act the Musical, but returned to perform on October 22, 2010. In 2015, Goldberg's brother Clyde died of a brain aneurysm.

Goldberg has admitted publicly to having been a "high functioning" drug addict years ago, at one point being too terrified to even leave her bed to go use the toilet. She states that she smoked marijuana before accepting the Best Supporting Actress award for Ghost in 1991. Goldberg has dyslexia.

Results of a DNA test, revealed in the 2006 PBS documentary African American Lives, traced part of her ancestry to the Papel and Bayote people of modern-day Guinea-Bissau. Her admixture test indicates that she is of 92 percent sub-Saharan African origin and of 8 percent European origin.

, 1h42Directed byChris RockOriginUSAGenresDrama, ComedyThemesFilms about music and musicians, Films about television, Hip hop filmsActorsRosario Dawson, Chris Rock, Doug Stanhope, Gabrielle Union, Kevin Hart, Sherri ShepherdRoles HerselfRating63% New York Times reporter Chelsea Brown is spending a day interviewing comedian and recovering alcoholic Andre Allen, star of the hit film franchise Hammy The Bear, about a cop in a bear suit. He is attempting a foray into serious films with Uprize, in which he portrays Haitian Revolution figure Dutty Boukman, and sensitive to criticism, particularly by Times critic James Nielson, whose previous reviews of Andre's work have been negative and insulting. As the interview begins in his limousine, Andre recalls his lowest point, when he was in Houston in 2003 and met Jazzy Dee, who supplied him with drugs, alcohol and women. Yet after Jazzy refused to pay the women, they contended they were raped, leading to Andre's arrest.

, 1h46Directed byNicole KassellOriginUSAGenresDrama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Romantic comedy, RomanceActorsKate Hudson, Gael García Bernal, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lucy Punch, Romany Malco, Treat WilliamsRoles GodRating62% Marley Corbett (Kate Hudson) is a quickwitted, carefree ad executive living in New Orleans, who embraces her easy going attitude, shuns any major responsibilities, and gains support and strength from a close circle of friends. She also enjoys casual dating and refuses to fall in love. One day, after an appointment, she is told by Dr. Julian Goldstein (Gael García Bernal) that she has terminal cancer. He is deeply impressed by the way Marley accepts the news with humour and dignity. While under anesthetic, God (Whoopi Goldberg) appears to Marley in heaven and asks her to make three wishes. She chooses to fly, to win a million dollars (not tax free), and a third that is later revealed.

, 1h17OriginUSAGenresDocumentaryThemesDocumentaire sur une personnalitéActorsBill Barretta, Frank Oz, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Clash, Fran Brill, Arsenio HallRoles Narrator (voice)Rating75% The film focuses on Clash's early career in Baltimore, Maryland. It covers his meeting and interactions with Sesame Street creator Jim Henson, puppet maker Kermit Love, and the phenomenal success of Elmo. (Clash joined Sesame Street in 1984. He resigned from Sesame Street in 2012 amid allegations of improper sexual conduct with minors, which he denied. This was not included in the documentary since it was released before the accusations were made.)